LOS ANGELES and MANCHESTER, England, Sept. 22, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — BBI, LLC, today announced that its SEM Scanner, a handheld device for detection of early pressure ulcers, improved the time to detection by, on average, 3.9 days earlier than the gold standard of care.

Findings from the independent study by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland’s School of Nursing were presented at the 18thAnnual Meeting of the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel in Ghent, Belgium. The SEM Scanner assessed levels of sub-epidermal moisture (SEM) — a marker of tissue damage — in 47 patients in a hospital acute care unit. All patients exhibiting sustained deviation in SEM, as detected by the SEM Scanner, went on to develop visible signs of pressure ulceration (Grade 1 or 2). The study showed that the SEM Scanner detected damage more quickly than nurses (average time to detection: 1.1 days with SEM Scanner vs. 5 days for the gold standard), giving nurses 3.9 days of lead time when using the SEM Scanner.